BT remains committed to the EE brand after “solid” start

Duo will pursue multi-brand strategy in order to address more market segments

BT has no plans to ditch the EE brand, after praising the operator’s performance over the past six months, following its £12.5 billion acquisition.

The comments were made by EE CEO Marc Allera (pictured), who described EE as a vital part of BT’s multi-brand strategy, across fixed-line, mobile and broadband.

“BT is pleased with the progress and commercial operational performance from EE,” Allera told Mobile News.

“They like the brand because it stands for innovation and mobility and is very digital savvy. We believe in pursuing a multi-brand strategy, because with more brands, we can address more segments in the marketplace. EE is a very important part of that strategy.”

The EE arm of the company posted revenues of £1.2 billion, down by two per cent, with EBITDA up by 11 per cent at £281 million for the three months ending June 30.

Numbers up
BT also posted an overall mobile base that includes its own MVNO BT Mobile which runs on EE’s network, of 30.3 million connections. The majority of this base was made up EE customers. Overall, the group added 244,000 contract customers during the quarter, while its prepay base fell by 291,000 in the same period.

EE also recorded its lowest ever churn, at one per cent for the quarter, while its 4G base reached 16.7 million.

The company’s 4G coverage reached 97 per cent of the population. Geographically, the operator now covers more than two thirds of the UK.

Cost savings
Allera said BT and EE had now begun to implement synergies, in a bid to create more than £3 billion in savings. These include an office move, which will see EE leave its Paddington office to move into one owned by BT this year. However, the CEO, who took over from Olaf Swantee in March, refused to speak about possible redundancies.

“We’ve had a solid start. Six months is long enough for us to have progressed a number of initiatives towards reaching our synergy targets across costs and revenue.”